HUNTINGTON -- Under the giant yellow-and-white tent, Michael Thomas stepped up to the microphone and gave Guyandotte's Bicentennial Celebration just what it needed -- more cowbell.

Armed with his cowbell, tambourine and the Explosive Dynamiks, who've been rocking stages for 40 years, Guyandotte native Thomas did something he'd never done with the band -- played the old neighborhood.

That R&B-soaked set of old-time rock 'n' roll set the mood just right for the last day of the four-day Guyandotte bicentennial celebration that wrapped up on Independence Day with a little music and a lot of history and love.

Surrounded by the Dynamiks, which racked up a hit single "Whole Lotta Lovin' " in the 1960s, Thomas gave folks a variety of Guyandotte quizzes from the stage, buying concession stand pops for anyone who knew the name of the theater across the street in the alley (the Mecca) and the names of at least three by-gone grocery stores.

"I guess I showed my age," Ron Nance said, laughing and holding a cold Diet Pepsi after reeling off the names of Blake's, Tiny's and Arnold's. "He was raised right here in Guyandotte, and I couldn't miss it. I had been so busy this weekend, I couldn't get down here until now . We always support everything on 14th Street West, so I figured we'd better support Guyandotte."

A crowd of only about 25 folks were under the tent when Thomas kicked off "Stand By Me" (with the help of Sanford Morgan, bass guitar; Greg Adkins, lead guitar; and Johnny Speaks, drums). By the time they were sweat rolling through the Doors, the Beatles and a double-shot of Marvin Gaye, the Dynamiks' crowd had swelled to more than 70.

Under a hot summer sun, organizers like Rick Simmons and couples like Karen and Johnny Nance danced out to this home-grown soundtrack that included James Brown's "Cold Sweat."

Thomas, who works for the city of Huntington, said he's proud of Guyandotte for pulling together.

"I want to thank everybody who put this together because I know that it has taken a lot of folks to pull together something like this," Thomas said. "Guyandotte is my hometown, and there is no place like it this side of the universe."

Simmons said that while the crowds have ebbed and flowed, they had a record 5,000 in Guyandotte Friday night for the sock hop and fireworks.

The Huntington Paranormal Group also brought in record crowds with more than 300 folks on Friday night, and nearly as many on Saturday, taking history and the group's popular ghost walks through the old part of Huntington that's brushed with Civil War history and some of the county's oldest homes.

That history lesson continued Sunday afternoon after the music.

Residents filled the historic Madie Carroll House Sunday to witness slivers of Guyandotte's past and present be buried for the future. A nearly three-foot-long time capsule, weighing in at approximately 35 pounds, was filled with information about the bicentennial and Madie Carroll house, DVDs about Guyandotte, a library card and a piece of the 84-year-old Guyandotte Bridge that was demolished in late June. The capsule will be buried in a recently-discovered cellar at the Madie Carroll house, to be opened 50 years from now.

"We found this cellar that nobody in the family knew anything about, so when we started talking about burying the time capsule we thought it would be more protected in the cellar than outside in the yard where it could be exposed to weather or vandalism," said Karen Nance, secretary of the Madie Carroll House Preservation Society.

The preservation society plans to cover the cellar opening in a back room of the house with plexiglass and mount a plaque so visitors can see into the cellar that members of the society believe was used as storage for the one-time tavern at the front of the house.

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